Dr. Diana Metes MD, FAST is a Professor of Surgery and Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and a member of the Thomas E Starzl Transplantation Institute (STI). Dr. Metes has dedicated her research activities to the field of human transplant immunology; she has helped build the human immunology program at the STI that she currently leads. Her research interests focus on various innate and adaptive immune cell contributions to allograft rejection or to viral infection control after organ transplantation. She has also designed protocols for cellular therapy to boost anti-viral immunity in pediatric transplant recipients and has assessed the impact of DCreg therapy to induce donor-specific immune hypo-responsiveness in adult kidney and liver transplant recipients. Her research activities have been continuously supported by funding from the NIH. Dr. Metes has published over 60 original peer-reviewed papers, including original articles, reviews and book chapters. Dr. Metes is a dedicated educator and mentor for students and fellows, an active member of the American Society of Transplantation, the International Transplant Society, and serves as associate editor for the American Journal of Transplantation.
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“Trained as a medical doctor and a hematopathologist in Bucharest, Romania I relocated to Pittsburgh in 1992 as a NIH Fogarty Fellow at UPCI and Department of Pathology. Since I joined the STI in 1998, my research always aimed to address outstanding clinical questions surrounding immune-driven complications (such as rejection or viral infections) after organ transplantation, that hinder long term graft- and patient-survival. Understanding the intimate cellular and molecular mechanisms governing these unwanted complications may serve not only for implementing novel non-invasive pre- and post-transplant immune monitoring protocols or identifying robust prognostic immune biomarkers for improved patients’ risk-stratification, but most importantly may bring closer to the clinic novel personalized immune-therapies that target specific immune circuits leading to the prevention or treatment of complications post-transplantation in adult and pediatric recipients. I strongly believe that human translational research conducted by investigators in the transplant scientific community, including our own work, will soon allow for significant improved patients’ assessment and therapy in the field.”